Can anyone show me the bare bones, extreme basics of setting/reading cookies? I read an online tutorial that explained about cookies but the only example was a counter script using cookies and I can't tell which is the script and which I acyually need to set the cookie. Thanks.

If you want the full power of using cookies without the hassels of developing the code or your own module of code I recommend getting the cookie module from Matt's Script Archive and use it with your programs. It is also an excellent module to tear apart and learn cookies with.